"Do you know where we're going? Do we need to call someone for directions?"

We were traveling up Highway 43 from Mobile headed to Leroy, my mother's tiny, South Alabama hometown. The husband was getting a little nervous as the terrain became more rural.

"Is it one of those one-stoplight towns?" he said.

I chuckled. "You're so cute thinking there's a stoplight."

My mama's granddaddy was the town doctor in Leroy way back when, and my granddaddy was the principal of Leroy High School until he retired sometime around 1976. He and grandmother raised five kids there, and I reckon all kinds of kinfolk used to live nearby.

Now there's just Uncle Joe and Aunt Audry, in a house where they've been for more than 50 years. It's smack in the middle of a field, right behind the old Palmer homeplace.

"Don't worry. I know how to get there."

Truth is, I wasn't 100 percent sure. Mama's been gone almost five years now, and I hadn't been back to Leroy since sometime in the '90s. But I'd grown up visiting there. Spent summers and Thanksgivings and Christmases there. Surely mental muscle memory would kick in at some point, and I'd know which road to take.

"Wake up, Callan. Help me find grandmother's house."

My 11-year-old first cousin once removed had fallen asleep in the backseat during the two-hour drive from Gulfport, Mississippi. I always take him for ice cream at some point during our annual family reunion, and this year, we'd almost run out of time. It was the last day, and our last chance was to stop on the way from the beach.

"Who used to live here?" he asked, rubbing his eyes and blinking in the bright June sunlight.

"My grandmother and granddaddy, and your mama's, too," I said. "Do you know who that was? You're grandmother's mama and daddy. Your great-grandparents."

My sisters and I used to wake up at about the same point in the journey from Louisiana back to Alabama. We'd be cranky, shoving one another for crossing the imaginary line that sisters draw in the car to mark their space.

Mama would tell us to hush and look for grandmother's house. That became our game, trying to be the first to see the house or the roof of the old barn.

We drove past the turnoff on the first try, though I knew it as soon as I saw it.

Around the curve and up a little hill, and there it was: my childhood.

Images flashed through my mind like an old-timey movie reel. My sisters and cousins bumping down a red dirt road in the back of granddaddy's pickup. Squealing as we jumped into the icy water of a cow trough on a steamy summer afternoon. Spinning until we were dizzy, then falling onto a bed of crimson clover to catch our breaths. Playing dress-up in the old prom gowns and bridesmaid dresses stowed in a cedar chest, stuffing oranges down the front to fill out the bodices.

Someone's living in the house, someone I don't know, though one of my uncles still owns it. As we drove by it, I swiveled in my seat, trying to catch a glimpse of grandmother's camellia bushes growing up around the front porch.

A line of cars already was parked in the big open space in front of Uncle Joe and Aunt Audry's house.

"We used to play football here," I said, though I'm sure the husband and Callan were getting tired of my Memory Lane reminiscences.

Cousin Jo Ellen, with the help of her husband Chip and their grown daughters, had set up tables in the carport and decorated them with little vases of hydrangeas, picked that morning from decades-old bushes.

After lunch, we walked over to the old barn. My aunts and cousins wanted to see it.

"That's where Horseboy used to be," I said, to no one in particular. "We used to fix him sandwiches out of magnolia leaves and corn. And that's where the chicken coop was."

Grandmother's clothesline is still standing, though the poles lean to the side like they're about ready to give up.

We took a few pictures, and fiddled around in the dirt trying to coax doodlebugs out of their holes.

Too soon, it was time to leave. It was getting late, and we had a long drive ahead of us.

I would have liked to have taken one more drive out to the cow pastures, or to have walked down to the creek where there used to be a beaver dam. Maybe next time. If there is a next time.

It's getting harder for Aunt Audry and Uncle Joe to manage out there in the country by themselves.

And the generation after me doesn't have the same connection to Leroy that we all did. They enjoyed the visit, but they're eager for new adventures. They've got their own memories to make.

But no matter how far away we end up, Leroy will always be a part of our history, a part of our collective memory.

It's there in the stories about riding mules and tickle fights. It's there every time one of the youngsters responds to a question with a polite "yes, ma'am" or "no, sir." It's there in the blessing before each shared meal.

Leroy will always be there, along Highway 43, waiting for us, should we ever decide to come home.